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Graceful Aging and Loss in Paris

Novak Djokovic was erratic early on Monday but settled down for a four-set victory.Credit
Julian Finney/Getty Images

PARIS — For a French Open that has yet to have a major upset, it has surely been a tournament full of big surprises and big swings of emotion.

Novak Djokovic, safely into the quarterfinals with the loss of just one set, has had to cope with the death of his childhood coach Jelena Gencic in the midst of the event he wants to win more than any other.

“Life gives you things and takes away close, close people in your life,” Djokovic said Monday after beating Philipp Kohlschreiber in four sets. “Jelena was my first coach, like my second mother. We were very close throughout my whole life, and she taught me a lot of things that are part of me, part of my character today.”

The Tommys — Haas and Robredo — have shown no shortage of character at Roland Garros this year, giving veterans at all levels a lift with their surprising runs into the final eight.

Who would have predicted a year ago, when Robredo was ranked in the 400s and playing challenger tournaments, that he would be back in the quarterfinals here at 31 after staring down two-set deficits as if they were break points?

Who would have figured that Haas, for all his fine form this season, would finally reach the quarterfinals on his least favorite surface at the even more advanced tennis age of 35?

Haas, a German who has long been based in the United States and carries dual citizenship, is the oldest man to reach this stage of a Grand Slam event since Andre Agassi, who was also 35 when he reached the quarterfinals at the 2005 United States Open.

“I think we all are just smarter, you know, about how you train, about how you eat, about how you do your recovery,” Haas said Monday after his 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 demolition of Mikhail Youzhny.

The Tommys are making good on their comebacks and ripping their flowing, one-handed backhands, which surprisingly are all the rage in Paris after being considered a stroke on the wane.

In the Round of 16 in men’s singles, eight players used one-handed backhands — the most since there were eight in the same round at Wimbledon in 2003. Four men with one-handers — Haas, Robredo, Stanislas Wawrinka and Roger Federer — reached the quarterfinals.

Wawrinka’s thriller with the Frenchman Richard Gasquet on Monday provided the best extended examination of the stroke, with Wawrinka eventually prevailing, 6-7 (5), 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 8-6 in one of the best matches of the tournament. Wawrinka won despite an exuberant performance from the introverted Gasquet.

Wawrinka had said before the match that he had the impression Gasquet was “less popular than the other French players” and that “he did not use the public” to his advantage as his more charismatic countrymen Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gaël Monfils did.

Gasquet appeared to take that to heart and spent much of the match pumping up himself and the lively crowd, even windmilling his arms after winners down the stretch as he played on through leg cramps. But it was “beaucoup de bruit pour rien” (lots of noise for nothing) from a French perspective as Wawrinka rallied from a two-set deficit for the sixth time in his career.

In the quarterfinals in the top half of the draw, Wawrinka will face Rafael Nadal and Haas will face Djokovic. In the bottom half, Robredo will face David Ferrer and Federer will face Tsonga.

Tennis might be a global game but the men’s singles is now an all-European affair. It remains to be seen whether Roland Garros will again be an all-Nadal affair.

The Spaniard has struggled here this year by his standards, but on Monday, his 27th birthday, he looked more like the Nadal who has won this title a record seven times. After last week’s soggy weather, the conditions on Chatrier Court were quicker and firmer, providing extra bounce to his topspin forehands.

Nadal never lost his serve against Kei Nishikori, the first Japanese man to reach the Round of 16 here in 75 years, and won, 6-4, 6-1, 6-3, in 2 hours 2 minutes: the equivalent of a sprint for a player as deliberate as Nadal.

Djokovic’s rematch with the tough and talented Kohlschreiber was considerably better theater. Kohlschreiber, a German with a marvelous one-handed backhand of his own, upset Djokovic in straight sets here in the third round in 2009. Subdued and erratic at the start, Djokovic gradually resumed covering and finding the corners to win, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

But the postmatch discussion did not center on the tactics and toughness required to shake free of Kohlschreiber. It focused on Gencic, a talented and intuitive coach who discovered Djokovic when he was 6 during a group lesson in the Serbian mountain resort of Kopaonik and who died in Belgrade on Saturday at 76.

Gencic, who had also advised the eventual champions Monica Seles and Goran Ivanisevic, coached Djokovic for five years. Djokovic said they last spoke two weeks ago.

“She knew exactly to recognize the potential of the tennis players; that’s why she, for me, is the best coach for that young generation that I ever met in my life,” Djokovic said. “People underestimate the importance for a professional tennis player of that start.”

Before her death, Gencic had asked him to take the trophy home to show her in person. He is now three victories away from winning the only Grand Slam singles title he lacks.

“She told me, ‘Listen, you have to focus. You have to give your attention to this tournament; this is a tournament you need to win,’ ” Djokovic said. “She was giving me this kind of inspiration and motivation even more, you know. So now I feel in her honor that I need to go all the way.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 4, 2013, on page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: A Paris of Spunky Tommys, a Star’s Grief and One-Handed Backhands. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe